Data Matters: U.S. Millennials Compared With International Peers

By Rebecca L. Weber

March 13, 2015

Americans lag in practical, career-oriented skills when compared with peers from 22 industrialized countries, according to a new report.

A new international comparative study shows that America’s approach to education reveals major contradictions: high expenditure and high levels of education, but low average performance. The United States consistently ranks low compared to other countries when it comes to literacy, numeracy and problem-solving in technology-rich environments.

America’s Skills Challenge: Millennials and the Future, published by the ETS Center for Research on Human Capital and Education, shows that America’s citizens attained higher levels of education than most other industrialized countries during the 20th century. But by 2010, the U.S. ranked third when looking at 25- to 64-year-olds and dropped to 10th place among 25- to 34-year-olds.

The study used data that compares the U.S. and 21 other member countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).